Kicking gringo “buts”
With the United States team (the best money can buy) likely to lose against the Mexican National Team (which mostly includes guys born in Mexico), credit to the foresight of the U.S. press in preparing pre-need excuses:
Wednesday’s crucial qualifying match at Azteca has been shifted from an accustomed evening kickoff to midafternoon. This is to lessen chances of a downpour in the rainy season, said Mexican soccer officials, who also would not mind seeing the hypoxic Americans flail in moderate heat and soupy pollution.
Dave Brockington, at Lawyers, Guns and Money (and sports) gives some credit to Azteca Stadium’s altitude, but sees the U.S. defeat for what it is… inevitable:
While Mexico are uncharacteristically struggling in the qualifiers for 2010, the 5-0 stomping of the USA in the Gold Cup final doesn’t matter, and their FIFA ranking is a near historic low 30th (the USA is 12th), the USA do not win this match. Sorry.
Why? Sure, the USA beat Spain, and played respectably against Brazil. However, in their last 23 matches in Mexico City, they are 0-22-1. No wins, one draw, and 22 defeats. Additionally, I tend to put more faith in the Elo rankings over the FIFA rankings. For example, the USA were ranked something silly like 4th for a while according to FIFA. Indeed this is true: 4th in May of 2006. And didn’t the USA look just great in Germany that summer? Elo have the USA 16th, Mexico 11th, though it should be said that this, too, is not 100% reliable, as I think Elo was overly affected by the Gold Cup performance; the previous month the USA were 9th according to Elo.
mexfiles.net 